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What sort of game will we play?

There are as many ways to play these games as there are people playing them. If you’ve played one, you may think that what you’ve played is the only way to play. If you have never played, you may have some preconceptions that will or will not coincide with the realities of the game you’re getting into. Hopefully, this post will clear up some questions you may have about the game I want to run and this can inform your decision to play in this game.

I envision the main game run in this world as an “open table” game. This means that there will hopefully be enough people interested in playing that whenever we have enough people -at least two and up to five- that want to play on a given day we can run a session. Also, the format will be such that you can drop in and out and the fiction of the world won’t suffer because each session is a self contained “episode” within the story.

I would like the “main” focus of the overall game to be a classic “tent pole megadungeon”. This means that the player characters (PCs) will be based in a central location – in this case, a small village outpost – that is nearby both a larger city and, more importantly, an extremely large underground complex, IE: a Megadungeon. The megadungeon provides the main focus for the PCs to enter and explore. The reasons are multiple: a mission for exploration by a patron, treasure maps, possible continuation of personal PC storylines, simply wondering what the history of the complex and how it ties to the history of the world… The possibilities for story are endless.

This isn’t to say that the entire game will be in the dungeon. Many times, things you learn about in the dungeon will lead to adventures on the surface. Sometimes this will be very close to the dungeon, either in the village, the nearby city, the local environs, etc… Other times it may lead to advetures hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. Possibly even taking place on the other side of the Coin of the World and even on the magic focused moons that orbit it.

Without going into the hell that would be describing the various views on what makes a good game, I will say that I am absolutely aspiring to an Old School aesthetic. This means that you WILL encounter things that are too powerful for you to face, if you’re not careful. If you are stupid in your exploration, you WILL die. Having said that, it might be a good idea to have a backup character ready to play…

The dungeon will be the focus. Most of the motivations for the game will center on the reasons you are in this dungeon. These reasons may change, over time, as you discover more things about the dungeon and your characters’ roles within this world. But, yes, the dungeon is the thing, as in the Old School aesthetic.